1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a product sales support method, a product sales support apparatus, and a product sales support program. In particular, it relates to a technique for implementing a product marketing strategy that has a high level of customer satisfaction, specifically a highly competitive product marketing strategy, by making planning decisions on services accompanying product sales variable for expanding sales of a product based on several preferences of the user for the services accompanying product sales.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, when formulating a sales growth strategy for expanding/increasing sales of a product, a sales staff member collects product preferences directly from customers or end users (hereinafter collectively called ‘users’) in the form of user meetings, interviews, or surveys (commonly referred to as Voice of Customer: VOC). This VOC is then manually analyzed by sales staff member to determine what services users want and what services should accompany the sales product in order to increase sales. The sales staff member or sales department formulates new strategies for product sales growth from the analysis results using their experience, intuition, and previous examples of successful contracts and applies these strategies to product marketing activities.
However, this conventional decision-making technique for product sales growth strategies has the following problems that should be solved.
Specifically, even if users' preferences about services accompanying product sales (hereinafter simply called ‘services’) can be understood from VOC collected from users, determination of what the overriding preferences are that should be incorporated into a product out of the plurality of preferences could only be made using sales staff member experience, intuition, and previous examples of successful contracts.
A situation may be considered where the following comments are gathered through VOC regarding for instance, a semiconductor-related product.                We want the price of the product to be lower.        We want to receive specifications within one week of request.        We want samples to be brought right away.        Easy searching is important when selecting components.        When a component is searched, we want a plurality of products listed that match the search criteria on the display screen.        Component selection is easier if each specification is also displayed in a list.        Access speed and power consumption is less important.        We essentially do not use discrete logic for parts where speed is critical.        Even if search criteria are not perfectly matched, we want alternative suggestions to be displayed if available.        We want shorter turn around time (TAT) between order and delivery.        How much does the sales staff know about the details of our product sets?        We want access to not only resources, but also to technical and planning staff.        We want a reel of samples.        You surely offer a complete line-up.        
Although numerous VOC such as the above may be collected and demands of respective users understood from these VOC, there is no established procedure for systematic-ally analyzing which of these demands are decisive for product usage and what is the level of customer satisfaction (CS) compared with competitors to formulate product sales growth strategies.
As a result, (1) which demands are considered important are assumed based on the experience or intuition of a sales staff member or sales department at the discretion of each individual, and a product sales growth strategy is formulated to meet these assumed demands, however, in many cases this sales growth strategy was not effective.
In addition, (2) as described above, since there are no established product sales growth strategy formulation procedures, sales growth strategy formulation relies wholly upon the experience and intuition of experienced sales staff members. As a result, less experienced sales staff members were unable to formulate product sales growth strategies by collecting VOC required for product sales growth, evaluate the collected VOC, and then systematically analyze the results. Moreover, since sales growth strategy formulation for the product is wholly dependent on experienced sales staff members, it could not be performed on a systematic or organizational level, and effective cultivation of competent staff was difficult.
If new formulation of a sales growth strategy for the product is attempted based on an unsuccessful example where no contract was won, it was impossible to fully understand potential user requirements such as those that contribute to newly increased product sales from the above plurality of VOC, focus on this requirement, and lead it to a sales growth strategy. As a result, particularly in the unsuccessful example, there were many cases where the entire sales growth strategy ends up with reducing prices.
As described above, a product sales supporting tool has been desired where, without dependency on the sales staff member on experience or intuition, potential requirements for services accompanying product sales which will directly contribute to increased product sales based on VOC collection are selected, and systematic and easy formulation of product sales growth strategy are possible.
In addition, a product sales supporting tool has been also desired, in user requirement groups for service accompanying product obtained from VOC, to indicate the current status of the company and the competitor customer satisfaction levels and also to provide a function which allows quantitative and visual selection of requirements contributing to product sales growth where efforts should be focused.